Five Things Meme: Jarlos
by Besosybrazos
Summary: Previously: Five Jobs James and Carlos Never Had. Now it's just a collection of Five Things featuring James and Carlos. Most recent installment: Five Times Carlos Might Have Been Insane. Warnings inside.
1. Five Jobs James and Carlos Never HAd

**:D A new fic! Awesome right? Well, you guys would probably have to read this first before you can make a judgment. So, this is basically the result of my utter love for 'five things' meme fics. I seriously can't get enough of them. Five times so and so didn't have sex, five times so and so was a girl, whatever the five things are, I'm all over them. I randomly thought of this earlier today and decided that it had to be done. I hope you guys like it.**

**A few of the ficlets are angsty, others are just intended to be silly and hilarious. I'm sure you guys can tell which are which, if not, that really says more about you than it does about me. Let me know if this is something you like, I'm considering doing a few more of these. I'd like to know how you guys thought it worked out.**

**Some of these are James/Carlos, some are gen, and others are gen that is sort of thinly veiled James/Carlos, and some are really just gen. You guys can decide which are which.**

**Oh and there is a very, very subtle Supernatural crossover, not that anyone who hasn't seen the show needs to have seen it. I just couldn't resist a teency shout out. I'm sure any of you who are fans will notice.  
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1.

"What do you think about the rumor of there being a ghost at the Palmwoods?"

Carlos is too busy pouring gasoline and salt on a corpse to answer. This is pretty standard, a normal salt and burn; it's also really, insanely boring. James misses the week before when they were hunting a Chupacabra through deserted fields in a rural part of Texas. That had been exciting.

"Like, a real ghost?" Carlos lights a match and tosses it into the grave. The body bursts into flames instantly and they lick upwards towards the two of them, burning orange and bright.

"That's what I heard."

"From who?" Carlos rubs at the faint lines of scratches on his face. They had been looking for a wendigo in Minnesota and James hadn't been able to get the rag in the bottle of gasoline to light. Wendigos are fast and so fucking strong, power and speed stretched onto anemic bones, barely more than skeletons, and Carlos had distracted it by shooting it right in the face, which was really fucking stupid, but it had worked. The wendigo had sunk its claws into Carlos' cheek, more pissed off than hungry at that point, and James had finally gotten the damn cloth to light. The bottle broke on impact with the wendigo's back, charred its gray, withered skin to bits.

"Singer, he says he thinks we can handle it. It's not dangerous, at least not according to anyone at the hotel."

"Why do we always get the ghosts that don't kill anyone?"

James wants to say it's because they're sixteen and new, which they are, but he's just as offended as Carlos, so instead he says something else entirely.

"I don't fucking know."

"I think everyone is age-cist. They're jealous that we're young."

"Maybe they're jealous of your helmet." Carlos started wearing his hockey helmet during hunts after a really nasty spirit threw him headfirst into a brick wall. Now Carlos wears it all the time, every damn day. If James didn't share a bed with Carlos, he'd think he slept in the thing too.

"My helmet is beast. It totally kept that slug swamp thing from eating my brains."

"Good thing too, that little guy would have starved."

"Fuck you." Carlos laughs, smiling wide and cheery. Carlos always seems to manage smiles, tells jokes to cheer them up the nights they can't get the monster in time. The only time Carlos hasn't been upbeat is the night a Rawhead gutted a baby as it slept in its crib, splattered blood through the white bars.

"We're out of condoms." Carlos knows he's kidding; he keeps a box of condoms in the glove compartment, because you never know when a grateful daughter/niece/attractive wife wants to pay her saviors a thank you, or when he gets really turned on watching Carlos clean blood off his face.

"Liar." Carlos puts the gasoline and salt in the trunk. James has to admit they're really fucking cool doing this. They've got the Mustang James' grandmother bought him for his sixteenth birthday and four weeks before school starts again. If it was possible he and Carlos probably would have dropped out already, taken straight to the road. As it is they aren't pressed for money. James' grandmother started a college fund for him the day he was born and when he told her what he really wanted to do, half convinced she'd think he was crazy, she stroked his face and sat him down. She told him a story from when she was a little girl in the old country, James had never known his grandmother was from the old country, so it was kind of cool to hear, plus it gave him an awesome ethnic thing that he could use to his advantage. She told him the tale of wicked women who rose from the lakes and rivers at night, danced naked and graceful in the meadows, combed their long, beautiful hair at the water's edge, waiting for men to drown and devour.

"Well do you want to check it out?" Carlos has a smudge of ash on his chin that James brushes away with his thumb, lingering and gentle.

"Duh. California is only super freakin' amazing. Plus we should probably send a postcard home once we get there."

James isn't quite sure how Carlos concocted the idea that they were going to a hockey camp in California or how their parents were dumb enough to fall for it. Either way, it worked, and here they are, two hundred miles north of the Oregon state line. Their summer has been hotels and great food and things that drool and snarl in the dark.

"You read my mind."

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2.

Carlos doesn't understand why James keeps complaining, it's James' fault they're in this to begin with. James is the one who spent the last of their rent money on a hairdryer that doesn't look any different from a regular hairdryer, except James says it has eighteen different settings and came with a free comb. Carlos is all for getting free stuff, just not when the free stuff comes after a three hundred and eighty six dollar purchase.

"I hate you." James whispers, wincing as he runs a brush through his wig to work out the random snarls.

"You said I could pick the job. I picked this."

"This is so fucking stupid." He likes it. He's sort of always wanted to be a clown. Clowns can do cool tricks and get to wear giant shoes and hilarious outfits. How can James not want to do that? They get to make balloon animals and swallow handkerchiefs and ride in a super tiny car! It's only like, the coolest job in the entire world. "Only you would pass over a perfectly nice job as handsome waiters in favor of being party clowns."

"You know I've always wanted to have a rubber nose." It's only been his secret dream since he was five, James should really know that. When they were small and went to birthday parties, he'd always hoped there would be clowns. He loved clowns; big clowns, little clowns, fat clowns, short clowns, that one clown that wore an eye patch had a hook for a hand. He loves getting to be silly and he loves the looks on kids' faces when he does something to get them to laugh. He loves making a little girl a pink balloon puppy she hugs to her chest until it pops.

"I know all about your freaky clown fetish." It's _not_ a fetish. He doesn't jerk off to the thought of the soft, colorful rainbow wigs, to the silky feel of a dozen different handkerchiefs tied together. Well, he's never actually decided to go through with it, 'cause that'd be weird.

"Shut up and put on your shoes."

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3.

The sun is shining through the stained glass windows, casting rays of multicolored light that dance along the old stone floor of the church, swirl across the pews. Carlos feels like he's looking through a kaleidoscope, like he's seven and watching the shapes and patterns turn, change and morph into things pretty and new. He feels like he's sixteen again and drunk, clinging to James' shoulders to keep him upright, pressed against the warm, lean line of James' back. He can still smell the shampoo James was wearing that night, feel the cotton of James' shirt against his cheek. The memories send tiny flares through him, bright and crackling, electric and alive.

He's contemplating taking a break, quitting the confession session early, when the door opens and closes, a figure settles beside him in the dark, separated by a thin layer of wood and a small, square mesh screen.

"Hey." There is no _forgive me for I have sinned_, nothing he's gotten used to. James sounds tired, world weary and wise. Fifteen years and there are moments he _wants_, so hot and brilliant, deep, deep down. He remembers how it used to be, how they used to be. James went off for a year after high school, just one year, off to chase a crazy modeling dream, and by the time he came back, as rich and famous as he'd always dreamed, Carlos had started wearing a white collar, had devoted himself and his emptiness to something bigger than himself, something glorious and divine. James had been furious, vicious and pleading, but Carlos had vows and a new life and people counting on him. He'd waited for James a year; he couldn't wait forever.

"Hi." He's seventeen again, stupid helmet stuck to his head, sitting with James and Logan and Kendall in homeroom, flicking bits of paper at Mr. Bitters when his back is turned. "How are you?" His throat closes up, tight and painful.

"Good. I have a new album coming out in a few weeks."

"That's nice." They're like shadows of their former selves, a sad parody of who James and Carlos used to be, _how_ they used to be.

"What about you?"

"A missionary trip to our sister chapel in Oaxaca."

"Cool." Time stretches into silence, twists at the ends as though it's being wrung by nervous fingers again and again. Carlos' mouth is too dry, spit too thick.

"I heard you and Mercedes are getting married in the spring." He knows because he saves every article he can find about James, saves them in a scrapbook someone bought him years and years ago. He has it filled to bursting, pictures of him and his friends as kids and teenagers, a picture of his sister's wedding, photos from his very first missionary trip, himself holding two smiling children in his lap. He keeps the book to remind himself that his life hasn't ended, no matter how true it might feel.

"Yeah." James coughs, rattling and empty. "I just wanted to ask—"

There are a hundred thousand things James could ask, Carlos only hopes he doesn't pick the one that has dread forming as solid lump in his belly. He _can't_, even if he wants to. He made promises to people and powers greater than himself.

"James—" He starts, stopping when James puts a hand up, signaling to let him finish.

"I was wondering if you'd be the one to marry us."

Carlos' heart drops and though it hurts, somehow worse than anything he was imagining, there's a grin working its way onto his face.

"I'd be honored."

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4.

Logan does his best to try and stay calm, even though this entire situation is ridiculous. But, being the best man means he's the one in charge of the bachelor party, and all the other guys decided that surprising Kendall with a hooker the night before his wedding would be _hilarious_. Logan's almost sure the joke will seem a whole lot funnier that night when they're all drunk.

"Um, so then, Mr. Diamond—"

"J-Daddy." James (J-Daddy) insists, leaning back in his chair and smiling. Logan's never met a pimp before in his life (he hopes to never meet one again) and he thinks they must be different than James or no hooker would ever be able to take them seriously. James is wearing a vibrant cheetah print purple velvet suit, complete with a matching hat, and his skin is a strange shade of neon orange Logan's never seen on anyone that wasn't an Oompa Loompa.

"Okay then, J-Daddy, like I said, it's my friend Kendall's bachelor party this Saturday."

"A bachelor party? Then you'll be wantin' one of my best bitches." James pulls out a photo book, the first two pages are full of shots of James in what Logan can only assume are various pimping outfits. The next four dozen are of girls and James flips through until he gets to the last page. There are three girls there, all breasts and long legs and beautiful, all too tempting. The hooker is supposed to be a joke, not a temptation. Kendall is supposed to be disturbed, not turned on. "Any one of the Jens will give your friend a night he won't forget."

"Oh he's not going to have sex with them. That's gross." He realizes what he's said too soon and James frowns at him. "No, I didn't mean that, I mean, they're beautiful, I'm sure sex with them isn't gross at all." Oh God he's having verbal diarrhea in front of a pimp, how embarrassing. "Don't you have, I don't know, someone else?"

James grins at him so that his face is all orange skin and bright white teeth.

"I getcha. Imma hook you up with my bottom bitch." James turns towards the door and yells. "Carlos."

"I'm comin', I'm comin'." Comes the reply in a voice that is surprisingly camp sounding for a guy's, but, then again, most male hookers probably aren't all that straight, so it really isn't that much of a shocker.

"Bitch, I know you aren't wearing no heels on my new floor!"

There's a pause and then the sound of footsteps resume, this time noticeably quieter, the click of high heeled shoes replaced by the soft thud of bare feet.

"Mhm, whatcha be needin' Papí Chulo." The guy that comes in is, well, kind of exactly what Logan was expecting. He's wearing a pair of shorts that Logan's pretty sure his girlfriend Camille owns and that strangely, look way better on him than her. He's chewing loudly on a wad of pink bubble gum and he has on an obscene mesh tank top that's about as effective at covering his skin as air.

"Got a job for you, ho." James says, sounding for all the world as though it is an endearing term. Carlos responds to it happily, though, and settles in James' lap, places kisses along his jaw. "This is Carlos, but you can call him by his street name, Culo Picante."

Logan, because he minored in Spanish in college, fights a blush and clears his throat.

"You know, I think I'm going to be looking into all the available prostitution vendors before I make a decision."

They take Kendall to a strip club. Logan doesn't talk about it.

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5.

They joined together. The day Carlos' draft ticket got called James went down and signed himself up without a second thought. He wasn't sure why he was doing it at the time; not really, he only knew he needed to go too to make sure that Carlos came home, no matter what. There were six guys from their town that would never come home again; Carlos wasn't going to be one of them. Him and Carlos, they were best friends until the end, always and forever.

He just never thought the end would come so soon.

It's pouring rain but the weather is hot and muggy, the air thick with humidity, the dank warmth of a foreign jungle. He doesn't care that his clothes are soaked or that he might never get his socks dry again. He doesn't care because he's trying to keep Carlos' blood inside his belly and failing at it. Carlos' blood is vibrant red and warm as it oozes up through the lines between his fingers. He hadn't known Carlos was hit at first, maybe because Carlos didn't know, or because Carlos thought that if he ignored the cascade of blood down his front that it would go away. James knows, however, that Carlos didn't want him to worry, didn't want to slow him down.

"Hey, I think the bleeding is stopping, you're gonna be okay." He's only half lying. The bleeding _is_ slowing down, if only because the ground beneath Carlos is red as the clay they used to make their mothers vases with in tenth grade. He isn't sure how much blood Carlos has left in him, just how much his body has to give. "This is going to make one hell of a scar."

He can barely see through the assault of rain, the denseness of the trees. He can't see their medic Logan anywhere, not that Logan can do much good at this point. The logical part of James that has seen this all before knows this is the end of _everything_, but the part of him that is more Carlos' best friend than soldier, hopes against hope.

Carlos tries to say something, something James thinks is his last, dying declaration, but all that comes out of his mouth is blood.

"Shit, James, we have to go. We're outnumbered, lieutenant said to retreat." Kendall is a guy from their unit, pride and joy of this part of the armed forces, poised to be a general someday once he works through the ranks.

"We can't leave him here." He won't leave Carlos' body. He promised he'd bring Carlos home and if he can't do it alive, he's going to bring his best friend home in a coffin.

"Okay." He'll thank Kendall for this later when the sound of gunshots and the whiz of bullets near his face stop, when he has silence and when there is time to grieve. Kendall helps him lift up Carlos' body and the rain washes away Carlos' blood from James' skin, leaves his hands clean and shiny, water bright in the faint light come down from the dim gray sky.

Years later, after the war is done and James is a civilian again, he holds the six pounds and eight ounces that is his daughter in his arms and never knew he could love a person so much that wasn't his best friend. His daughter is so perfect, even if she's red and blotchy, her head a strange shape that will round out in a few days, balder than an eighty year old man. James loves her _so _much from her ten fingers to her ten toes. She moves one of her hands, achingly small and feeble, and he touches the little band of yellow around her wrist. Her name is on that bracelet and it stands out in neat, printed letters. _Carla Diamond_. His tiny Carla, perfect and whole and here.

He feels the dog tags nestled against his heart, the ones he took off Carlos' body that day that feels like yesterday, that still hurts him; a wound that will never truly close. Carlos' parents said they didn't want the tags because they have a framed letter from the president and a folded flag on the mantel to remind them of their son, dozens and dozens of pictures, a high school diploma Carlos was so damn proud to have. The metal is warm from being against his bare skin and he knows that someday, when his daughter is older, she'll be the one to wear them; living proof of his most cherished memory.

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**For those of you who are wondering: my grandfather's both served in Vietnam, I'm not religious, and if you want to know what Culo Picante means, you should google it. It's more fun to find out on your own. ;)**


	2. Five Ways James and Carlos Didn't Die

**Uh wow, where to begin. This stems from when I was babysitting this morning. The kids were watching BTR and all I could think about was writing porn and then, instead of porn, I ended up with zombie apocalypse, which led to this entire thing being created. I can't explain it, not really. I like it better than straight porn, though there is some light sex in here, nothing too bad, however. I save the hardcore stuff for livejournal.**

**Warnings for noncon, implied noncon, violence, gore, homophobia, and adult language and scenarios. **

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1.

There are fewer and fewer bodies to find these days. The bloated and rotting corpses are little more than piles of bones picked and licked clean. The stench of death and decomposition is gone from the air, replaced with the false scent of freshness, of wind as it blows through the trees, through the waist high grass of the mountains, through the golden California hills. The city is a wasteland and everything is dying or dead or wishes it was.

"Jackpot!" Carlos yells loudly from the other room, his voice happier than James has heard in months. James jumps over the partially eaten remains of a secretary, her long, dark hair spattered with gray lumps of brain and pulpy gore. They tore her skull right open to get in and the hole is wide and gaping against the white bone of her exposed scalp.

"Dude." He can't help but smile too, so wide it hurts his face, so wide it feels like betrayal. It feels wrong to find moments of happiness in the apocalyptic world. "I can't believe it."

"We're going to have _chocolate_." Carlos' eyes are bright and alive and it's like being sixteen again, not nineteen going on forty. It's strange to see them be this way, Carlos still with his helmet but now with a short beard because razors are few and far between. Carlos who is filled out, a gun strapped into a holster on his thigh, a knife tucked into his belt, and his rifle carefully slung over one shoulder, always _always_ within reach.

"I haven't had a candy bar in over a year." Carlos beams at him as he slams the butt of his gun into the vending machine glass. It splinters, cracks, gives way and then they are both in elbow deep, grabbing bags of chips and cookies and powdered donuts, chocolate bar after chocolate bar. They aren't low on supplies yet but it's a small miracle to find a treat. Most grocery stores have been ransacked by survivors or raided by the zombies. Zombies go for flesh and bone, marrow and blood, but they'll eat anything with a trace of meat, so most of what's left is stuff like canned vegetables and fruits, dried pastas and sauces. Chocolate is manna from heaven, a gift from the kinder powers that be. James doesn't believe in God these days, only the raging fury of the universe and the temporary compassion of luck.

"We're going to eat so good tonight." They stuff Carlos' backpack full and get their guns ready. The only thing more dangerous than entering a building is leaving. Zombies are stupid things but they have the sense of smell of a bloodhound and inhuman hunger in their bellies, the strength of something powerful and dead.

"Let's hurry up and head back to base." Maybe they're sentimental about the whole situation, but the Palmwoods has been thoroughly secured and fortified. It's still home, even after all that's happened, even after the plague swept through and those that died of it didn't stay dead. It was a place of refuge in those times and now it's their only place of solace. The rooms used to be full of survivors, the sound of children laughing in the halls. Now the place is quiet as a grave and it's just him and Carlos. It used to be the four of them but Logan and Kendall went down on their last raid and James feels the loss so strongly it aches every second of the day. They were trying to save a little girl but the zombies were quicker than they'd anticipated. Kendall had tossed the child to Carlos and told him to run, as fast as he could, and James couldn't shoot accurate enough. They got Kendall first, tore him apart while he was still alive, in a hot, burst of blood and awful screams. Logan tripped on his way to the door and took himself out before they could, one efficient bullet to the temple.

"We're back!" Carlos calls out as soon as James double bolts the main door, tosses vinegar outside to cover up their scent.

Minnie runs out to meet them and attaches herself to Carlos' leg. James wants to hate her sometimes, the four year old girl who cost him two of his best friends. Two of the best men left in the world. He can't bring himself to, however, not when Carlos picks her up and spins her, not when she throws her arms around his neck and kisses each of his cheeks. She's tiny, just a baby when the zombie plague started. All she's known in life is fear and the patter of bare feet slapping against concrete as the zombies chase you. She has neat black hair that James cut for her and dark, almond shaped eyes. They found her in what used to be the Chinese immigrant part of LA and she's probably the last Asian left south of Big Sur. The population is dwindling down to three now, set to dip down to zero. "I brought you a present."

"We both brought you presents." He breaks open a candy bar and hands her a square of chocolate. He doesn't think she's had it more than once or twice in her life because she savors it, licks it with her little bubble gum pink tongue like it's a lollipop. "Good, huh?"

Minnie doesn't talk, not since her mother handed her screaming to Kendall, begging him to save her daughter, _please oh please save her baby_. Minnie smiles sometimes when Carlos tickles her belly or James brushes her hair, but otherwise she's silent except for at night when she screams her way through terrible nightmares.

"We found tons of candy, quierida." Carlos calls her quierida and he says that it means dear and darling and that's a pretty good word for what Minnie is. She's their dear, their darling, the only person left to cherish and protect. "It's getting dark, we should head upstairs."

Zombies are most active at night; it's when they really go on the prowl for food. It used to be so bad James could hear screams every night. The silence of the nights is even worse, because now there's no one, not a sound, proof that he and Carlos are truly alone.

"What would you say to leaving the city? There's no one here, Carlos. We should head north, try to see if there's anyone in San Francisco." They've never talked about leaving before. Los Angeles has always been their home, their city and their people. The city is theirs but there are no people left. "It's not good for Minnie if we stay here. She needs someone who can take care of her, someone with more to offer." Carlos knows it's true. They have to leave Minnie alone to go out looking for food and they can't give her more than food and shelter and all of their pent up affection. They don't know what to do if she gets a fever, if she ever has questions about her body, if she wants someone with soft hair and hands to stroke her cheek.

"Might as well." Carlos shrugs, unbuckles his helmet with one hand and hangs it by the guns at the door. "We can leave at sunrise."

The roads are hard to navigate but they make it out of the city after four hours. Most of the cars have been cleared from the highway thanks to one of the Army's final sweeps. Minnie sleeps buckled into an old car seat they found in the back of a minivan, a withered, gray child inside it. The toddler was dead from strangulation, if the hand shaped bruises around its neck were an indication. It's the kindest thing a mother can do to kill her child in a time like this, it's better than the alternative.

They stop in Bakersfield for the night. A fire station looks promising, its windows are boarded up and the doors are fortified with steel. It looks like it could have people and if not; it will provide more than adequate shelter for the night. The only way to get in is up the fire escape and that's if Carlos climbs up on his shoulders and then offers James a hand up.

The sun is setting on the coast, the sky a wash of purple and orange and blue. The wind starts to blow, towards the inner part of the city and away. It's a bad omen and he tries not to think about the way it'll carry their stench to whatever has a nose strong enough to smell them on the breeze.

"We need to get inside ASAP."

Carlos has just managed to grab the end of the fire escape ladder when a gunshot rings clear and loud in the quiet. Carlos screams and blood immediately soaks his blue sleeve dark. The blood will attract zombies faster and James can almost see them sprinting across the pavement, their sunken, decomposing faces contorted in hunger, saliva frothing from their mouths.

"Oh fuck, oh fuck." Carlos gasps on the pavement, left hand pressed tight over his wound. Blood seeps out beneath his palm, thick and red. A shoulder wound isn't life threatening so long as the bullet passes clean through but they need to stop the blood. "Who shot me?"

"Up there." A woman hops out onto the fire escape, a gun on each hip, another in her hands. She's beautiful, dark skin and dark eyes and a darker expression. She thought they were zombies or maybe she didn't, people do what they have to do to survive. James can't fault her one bit. "Help us, please." She darts down the fire escape and stops just above them, gun pointed at his face.

"What did you come here for?" Not every person still surviving is a good one. He knows that better than anyone because he had to watch and Carlos had to live it. They don't talk about _that_, it hasn't happened in two years, but if he closes his eyes he can still remember it, every sight and smell and sound.

"We just wanted somewhere to stay the night. We have a kid."

"You shot me!" Carlos shouts up at her, scowling, a few droplets of blood glistening in his beard.

"And I'll shoot you again if you don't shut the fuck up. Screaming attracts them."

Sure enough, the sound of a horde of footsteps starts up and there's the rattle of a metal trashcan being trampled by feet. The first zombie comes into view, an emaciated, scraggly looking creature in scraps of a green shirt, completely naked otherwise. The zombie will close the distance in fifteen seconds. James looks to Minnie, who is sitting on the roof of the car, a juice box clenched in her fists, and he thinks of Kendall and Logan.

"Take her!"

The woman extends her hands and James picks Minnie up and throws her with everything he has. She lands square in the Woman's outstretched arms but she's reaching for James and Carlos, talking for the first time since they've had her. She's screaming _no no no_.

He cocks his gun and waits. The zombie gets within a hundred feet and he puts a hole in its head, another in its neck. It dies in a burst of arterial spray. More follow, nearly four dozen of them, and James knows the odds. He has enough bullets to take down twenty-eight of them, Carlos too, but Carlos' shooting arm is shot to hell and he can barely pull the trigger let alone hold his gun steady.

"James." Carlos says, staggering to his feet.

"Yeah, I know." Drops of Carlos' blood land on the pavement.

"I'm tired." Carlos takes out his pistol, ready to shoot with his left.

"I miss Kendall and Logan." Carlos drops his gun; James grabs Carlos' blood smeared hand.

Carlos' mouth is warm against his and the sunset is beautiful.

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2.

The accident is Carlos' fault. It was his idea to go out for a trip along the California coast. He knows it's his fault and he wants to apologize for it, but his mouth is full of blood and dislodged teeth, so he can't say a word.

Everyone said Big Sur was a dangerous drive; one of the deadliest in the world. There are sheer cliffs and jagged rocks and narrow roads. _Navigate with extreme caution_ is what the signs all said. If Carlos was smarter, and there are times he wishes he was, he'd have taken that as a sign to tell James to stop for the night. He's only had his license four weeks at this point and anyone else would take one look at the hundred foot drop into churning water and slam on the break. Years of driving his grandfather's truck in the fields behinds his house make him cocky and in those boring Greek tragedies they have to read in school, the moral of the story is that hubris always comes before the fall. In this case, the fall is literal and agonizing.

"Carlos?" James' mouth is drenched in blood that is leaking from his flattened nose. James' face hit the dashboard when they fell into the rocks and then the water. His nose is smashed and broken, swollen three times its normal size and colored a dark, angry purple.

"Gngph." He opens his mouth to let teeth and blood and drool slop out wetly down his front. "I didn't see the bend in the road."

"Dat's okay." James sounds funny. Carlos tries to laugh, just to see if he can, and inside of him he feels the slide of splintered bones.

"My chest hurts." Each time he breathes there's a stabbing pain in his right side and pressure against the inside of his ribs.

"I can't feel my legs." James lets his head fall forward until his chin is resting against his collarbone and blood continues to gush out of his broken nose.

"I'm sorry." It's getting harder and harder to breathe. He feels like he's being suffocated, crushed from the outside in.

"Not your fault." The car smells like blood and urine and sweat. James lost control of his bladder when his back broke and Carlos isn't going to say anything. It doesn't need to be mentioned. There are things you can ignore in death, if he is dying, and he thinks he is. He's hurting too much to be able to live.

"Thanks."

"Don't mention it." James closes his eyes and the only sound in the car is the harsh wheeze of Carlos as he tries to draw a breath.

"Guess we aren't gonna make it back in time to record another album."

James doesn't answer. Carlos' throat is thick with all the things he wants to say. James looks like he's asleep and that's what death is, really, just an eternal, peaceful sleep. "I'm sorry, James." His lungs are ground glass and fire, blinding white and hot.

He listens to the sound of his shuddering breaths, the pound of his heartbeat inside his head, the last little noises of his life. The ocean waves lap peacefully against the sides of the car and then there are no more sounds, just the cry of gulls and the hum of the sea.

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3.

When you're dying, everyone around you is all smiles.

The nurses smile at him about everything: lab reports, test results, when they bring in his meals, when they come to give him yet another IV. He's tired of happy faces. They don't need to be gentle with him. He's accepted that he's doomed to die a painful death. Facing your own mortality sucks, but he doesn't need everyone to be so gentle around him, like acknowledging reality is going to break him.

"Good morning James. How are you feeling today?" The only good thing about being terminal is that all the nurses on this side of the ward are hot.

"Fine." Nurse Ng sets his breakfast tray on the table in front of him. Monday is wheat toast and scrambled eggs with a side of blueberry yogurt. Hospital food is shit, no doubt about it.

"You're getting a roommate later this afternoon." She smiles at him, smoothes her hands through her straight, rather boring hair. "It'll be nice to have some company, don't you think?"

"It'll be fantastic, I'm sure." She doesn't appear to recognize his sarcasm, because her smile is genuine and cheerful and bright.

They wheel his roommate in around two. He's a small guy with short hair who's pale underneath his natural coloring, a startling lack of pink in his cheeks. He's wearing a dark hoodie over his hospital gown and pants.

"Let me know if you need anything else to make you comfortable." The male nurse, the big, giant, beast of a man who looks like he should be working for security instead, ruffles the kid's hair and bumps him under the chin.

"Thanks! Have a good afternoon!" His roommate is one of _those_ types; the kind that are chipper even in death, who look into that looming abyss and try to fill it with their artificial light. "I'm Carlos."

"James." Carlos' hand is cold when they shake. "Obligatory 'what are you in here for' question." It's standard patient procedure to find out what the person you're living with is in for. All there is to talk about most days are diseases and how many months or weeks or days a person has left. "I have leukemia, it's metastasized and I've got another two months tops."

"Congenital heart defect. I'm finally at the top of the transplant list but if I don't get a heart soon I won't be healthy enough to survive the surgery." Carlos doesn't appear sad to say it, just shrugs it off. James would be pissed in his place, if he had something that could so easily be cured. Two bone marrow transplants, a brief remission, and he's still going to kick the bucket.

"That sucks."

"Nah, it's not so bad. Someone else will get the heart if I don't. I might die but someone else will live. It's like the circle of life or something." Carlos walks back to his bed slowly, chest rising and falling rapidly after only a few steps.

"Dude, you okay?"

"I've got a bad heart, so no, I'm not okay." It should sound mean and nasty but Carlos is laughing while he says it. "If I was okay I'd be home playing hockey."

"You play hockey?" The roommate thing should work out. Carlos is nice enough and he's been dying to find someone to watch hockey games with.

"I wish." Carlos takes the oxygen mask hanging by his bed off the hook, puts it over his mouth and draws in a deep, shuddering breath. "My doctor said the exertion could kill me, whatever that means. I had to play with the girls during lunch. The girls! I know how to braid hair; no guy should ever know how to braid hair when he's six."

"That is pretty crappy, not gonna lie." James doesn't know how to braid hair, per say, but he's a _god_ with a straightening iron in his hands. Not that he has much hair to mess around with these days. He lost it after chemo round number one and was finally up to something resembling peach fuzz when he had to get round two. His hair is slowly growing back but at this rate he'll be dead before it's back to its former luster. "How long are you here for?"

"'Till the end." Carlos lays back, kicks off the ugly hospital slippers.

"Like, _the_ end?"

"My parents work and I can't be left home by myself anymore. Aren't you here until then?"

"No! I'm here for the weekend, I just got _the_ diagnoses."

"Oh, yeah, how'd that go? I don't remember getting it, 'cause I was so small. There's really nothing to be afraid of, most of my friends died and it didn't seem so bad." James can't imagine watching his friends die and now he gets why Carlos takes this whole death thing in stride. It's normal to him; he's been introduced to the idea that he's going to die young since he was a few days old. It must be fucking normal to him at this point.

"I can't change it, what am I supposed to do? Cry? Yeah, I could cry, it wouldn't make my mom feel any better, and I'm not going to go out like a pussy."

"It's fine to cry, it's the first stage of death." Carlos pulls a paper bag out of the front pocket of his hoodie. When he opens it there's the distinct, lovely odor of fast food and grease. "Want a corndog? My cousin Yesenia works as a candy striper and she brought me these."

"Hell yes."

* * *

He and Carlos spend the weekend watching cartoons and sports on TV, spitting out the window and dropping water balloons made out of surgical gloves. The hospital room feels homier with another person in it, not quite so cold and clinical. Carlos adds the smell of his house to the scent of disinfectant and latex, something warm and sweet with a hint of spices. Carlos' family comes to visit every afternoon and his mother smuggles him in Tupperware filled with soup. Saturday's soup is red with chunks of meat and corn-things Carlos calls hominy and Sunday's is rich orange with thin noodles that tastes like tomatoes.

"It was fun having you around." James doesn't know what else he's supposed to say as he gathers his stuff into his bag, tugs off his stupid, paper-thin hospital gown and replaces it with his favorite shirt. He looks disgusting these days, so pale and unnaturally skinny.

"You too."

"I'll stop by and um, maybe, you know, towards the end—"

"I'd like that." Carlos hugs him, a full-on hug, their chests and shoulders and hips touching. It's strange to be hugged that way by someone he's just met, strange and comforting. He likes it more than he's probably supposed to.

"I'll see you soon, I promise."

* * *

Visiting Carlos becomes an everyday thing. His mom drives him to the hospital before she has to leave for work, runs her hand over his too-short hair and kisses his forehead. She thinks visiting Carlos is helping him cope with the fact that he's going to die so soon and maybe it is, maybe that's part of why he likes Carlos as much as he does.

"Who was the first girl you ever kissed?"

They're lying together on the roof, their backs against the sun-warmed concrete, staring up at the blue-blue afternoon sky.

"Uh, there isn't one." Carlos blushes and for the first time there's color in his cheeks. For a brief instant James sees what Carlos would look like healthy.

"Guy?"

"No." Carlos turns his face away.

"You've seriously never kissed anyone? Chicks love the whole dying-guy thing. It makes you vulnerable."

"I've never had a girlfriend! I'm probably going to die without ever kissing anyone, how sad is that? I mean, it's bad enough I'll die a virgin, but a kissing-virgin?"

"I could help you out with that. There are girls around her, whaddya say?" Carlos turns back to face him, his face still flushed but his eyes empty.

"No, that's alright. There are more important things to worry about."

* * *

He kisses Carlos one morning when they're wrestling over who gets the last of the popsicles the nurses brought in. James is getting steadily weaker but Carlos doesn't have the stamina to subdue him, so he ends up pinned on his back, glaring up at James with all the fake hatred his little bad heart can muster.

James kisses him and Carlos' tongue is ice cold and tastes like cherries and grapes. It's not bad but it isn't great. Carlos doesn't know what to do with his mouth, there's tons of excess saliva and fumbling with their hands. James wants to cup Carlos' jaw but Carlos wants to curl both sets of his fingers in James' collar and tug him closer. They compromise somewhere in the middle and then things get better, they fit together better.

"I guess I won't die without ever kissing someone." Carlos pants when they break apart, his heartbeat fluttering fast as a hummingbird's winds at his pulse points. James is afraid right then that the kissing might kill him, but Carlos' heart calms down and they lay together cheek to cheek.

The nurses don't kick him out when Carlos sneaks him in to sleep over. They know James is only a few days away from checking in himself. He's tired all the time these days, like the effort to keep his body alive is too much. It's only a matter of time and his mom cries alone in her room when she thinks he's gone to sleep.

The nurses check on the terminal patients every hour so he and Carlos don't have much time. Carlos has the condoms that he got from the third floor where they give them out for free. Carlos has to roll it on James because James' fingers tremble if he tries to use the muscles for too long. He's starting to shut down, slowly but surely. They use the lube Carlos got from the third floor and it goes worse than their first time kissing did. James has _never_, not with a guy, and Carlos has never _ever_ and by the time James slides home Carlos is clinging to him tighter than a baby monkey grips its mother's back.

Once he's inside it's easier. All he has to do is shift his hips, get himself going in a good, steady rhythm. Carlos lets his thighs fall into a wide V so James can shift closer, gain some more leverage to make this whole thing work. Carlos is tight, tighter than James thought anyone could be, smooth and virgin-warm. Carlos makes soft, breathless noises and then it's over, quicker than he'd hoped. He can't last as long as he wants, he can't even get hard as easily as he used to, which is probably just as well. The blue tint to Carlos' lips never leaves, even when he has the oxygen cannula in his nose.

* * *

The day he finally has to be checked in, Carlos' bed is empty.

"I'm sorry." Nurse Ng's eyes are red rimmed and watery.

"Thank you." His heart literally hurts.

Carlos' black hoodie is folded neatly on the end of his bed. He picks it up, runs his fingers over the soft cotton material.

"Are you going to be okay, sweetheart?"

Carlos' hoodie is too small but he's never going to take it off.

"I think so."

He isn't afraid anymore.

* * *

4.

James feels the knife pressed to his neck before he hears Carlos scream.

The blade is cold as steel and sharp enough to nick his skin without any excess pressure. The knife is all he can focus on in the dark, the gleam of streetlight off the metal, the sound of skin shifting around the hilt of the weapon.

"There's money in the dresser." Something like ninety percent of all home invasions are robberies. He and Carlos can handle that.

"We don't want your money."

The lights flip on, revealing three guys in thick plastic masks that warp their features. They're nothing but layers of plastic the color of flesh from their skin underneath and tiny holes for eyes.

"Why are you here?" Carlos is bleeding from the mouth. One of them must have punched him; it explains his scream.

"This is a neighborhood with family morals. We don't like having you two here."

James is the one who wanted an apartment in the city, somewhere in the middle of everything, where restaurants and movie theaters and malls are within walking distance. They're only here because Carlos' grandmother left the house she and her husband saved forty years to buy to him on her deathbed, her favorite and only grandson. Carlos said it would be insulting not to take it, even if they both preferred the bustle of the city to the slow crawl of the 'burbs.

"Is this a gay or a Mexican thing?" Only Carlos is blunt enough to come out and say it. Logan warned them about something like this when they first discussed moving in. Logan and Camille have lived on the block since they were married seven years ago and they're raising two healthy, beautiful kids in a house with a white fence and a green lawn. James was never the type of person who wanted that, but it seemed possible. They could get a dog or a baby; if that was something they wanted, if they're crazy enough to dream.

"We aren't racists." The biggest of the bunch backhands Carlos hard enough the sound of the slap makes James flinch.

"Got it."

"This is the 21st century; I thought we were beyond beating the shit out of the neighborhood faggots." He says it to get their attention away from Carlos and for one of the blows to finally land on him. Carlos' mouth is a bloody mess and James can't bear to look at it.

"We're not gonna beat you that bad."

"Yeah," the shortest of the bunch chimes in and his voice is surprisingly deep. "We're just going to teach you a lesson."

It's not the first time someone has tried to beat him up because they think he's weak and gay, but it's the first time that someone is actually going to succeed. He's always been able to take care of himself. He's a tall guy, six foot one and he works out all he can. He can hold his own in a fight. Carlos can too, he's small but he fights dirty if need be and his dad was a police officer.

James braces himself for it, for the impact of hands and fists and feet. He gets a boot to the belly, another to the chest. Carlos isn't as lucky. A pair of hands tug at Carlos' flannel pajama bottoms and it's enough to get James fighting back, twisting and punching with everything he's worth because they _can't_, they _can't_. He won't let them. There isn't much he can do, other than close his eyes and block out the sounds of slick skin and the iron scent of blood. He feels like the world's worst coward who should be shot and left to die and rot in the sun. He let Carlos down and the knife to his spine isn't enough to ease his guilt. Carlos takes two stab wounds to the belly. They're deep and bleed like geysers, soak the bed in red.

They lie together in that sodden, blood stained bed until the neighbors report an awful, nauseating smell coming from the open window.

* * *

5.

Cold air gets into his bones and makes his joints hurt, his body creak. He's reminded of skeletons from horror stories, the brittle squeaking made by their dust-dry bones. He feels like a skeleton these days, his skin stretched too tight and too thin, more wrinkled than seems fair. Eighty years of life are hard on the body.

"Breakfast!" Tonzi calls him from the kitchen, her voice echoing through the hallways. He sleeps in on Sundays, the one rare day his grandchildren don't come tumbling into his bed yelling _Buelo_ at the tops of their little lungs. "Morning Papí." Carlos had never thought about being a father for the first thirty-three years of his life. Parenting was too much responsibility and out of reach. He and James were living together by that point in a two bedroom, two bathroom apartment on the East Side of LA. A kid didn't register on either of their radars, not until they agreed to go with Kendall on his ridiculous hike through the Amazon rainforest adventure for his thirty-fifth birthday. They'd gotten lost, as was expected, and ended up at a local orphanage. They hadn't been planning on doing more than asking to use the phone when they saw a three year old trying to carry her baby brother on her back. It just sort of happened and they left Brazil four months later than anticipated with adoption papers and a new family.

"Good morning." Tonzi and Ramón don't look like him, naturally. They're both dark as dirt, as Tonzi put it when she was six years old and she announced that she was really a flower that had come out of the ground.

"I put your medicine by your oatmeal." Tonzi kisses his cheek and she smells like the hair products James picked out for her as soon as she turned thirteen.

"Thank you, mija." He takes three pills in the morning and two more at night. High cholesterol and blood pressure are just some of the many curses of old age. He swallows them religiously. James hated the doctor's, didn't go more than six times in his life, and maybe because of or in spite of it, he died at the age of seventy-four of a brain aneurysm. "I'm not feeling very hungry this morning." He takes the pills anyways, gulps them down with some orange juice. "I think I'm going to go sit on the porch."

He sits on the outdoor furniture and watches his grandchildren run around on the front lawn. It's going to be a lovely summer day, the kind that are warm without being stifling, that offer the promise of ice cream and outside fun. Joaquin, his oldest grandson, is washing his new bike with the garden hose while the younger kids, Lauren, Cora, and Matteo splash in puddles on the grass in their swim suits. Carlos wishes James could be here to see this, enjoy the warmth of the sun and the pleasant cool of the wind. He wishes for many things he can't have, for another chance to be young again, for his favorite, treasured helmet he lost years and years ago, for the precious moments with James on early Saturday mornings, Tonzi and Ramón snuggled between them in bed. He wishes for the happiness of the past and present and future to remain perpetual, to carry on forever.

The joy of life is overwhelming, so much so that he has to close his eyes.

* * *

**BTW, if any of you have ideas for five things memes, don't hesitant to comment with them. I can't guarantee that I'll write all of them(lol or even any of them) but if I see one I like you can bet that I'll churn something out.**

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	3. Five Ways the World Didn't End

**Rating:R**

**Pairings:James/Carlos, James/ofc, Carlos/ofc, Jo/Kendall, Logan/Camille, Jennifer/Jennifer/Jennifer, Carlos/Jennifer Three**

**Warnings:Blood, gore, character death, racism, war, disturbing imagery, adult language, and general unpleasantness**

**Summary:Five Ways the World Didn't End  
**

Apocalypse Remix: A Beber y a Tragar, que el Mundo se Va a Acabar (Eat, Drink, be Merry [for Tomorrow We Die])

* * *

1.

The swarm starts in the east, high up in the Colorado Rocky Mountains. The news shows the giant, looming cloud and Carlos thinks of Sunday sermons at church and afternoons of catechism that warned of locusts come to devour the crops of the earth. He remembers the ancient Egyptians and the wrath of God that sent hoards of them to ravage the fertile fields of Egypt until all that grew from the dust was despair and starvation.

"Do you know how big this is?" Only Logan could get so excited over a 200,000 square mile wide stretch of bugs flying packed tightly together. The camera does a close up on a single locust sitting on a leaf. His throat clenches in disgust just at the sight of its wide, black eyes and multiple, scratchy legs. "Those have been extinct for years. We wiped them out over a century ago." According to the news report, the cloud of insects is larger than the entire state of California and from where Carlos is standing, it looks big enough to block out the sun.

"Oh Logan, that's disgusting, we're about to eat dinner." Mrs. Knight shuts off the television and tenses her shoulders in a slow shudder. "Those things better not come out to California."

"They congregate in the Midwest. They usually feed off the prairies. They never come this far west."

It's the first time Logan's wrong.

* * *

The locusts decimate agriculture in the Midwest, what little of it there is. California grows the majority of produce in the United States. His parents used to tell him with pride about how his abuelo worked every day in the fields, picking with his back bent and neck exposed to the sun. He put his sweat and his blood and his life into those fruits and vegetables, the melons and broccoli and strawberries._ For you mijo_, his papá would say._ He did it all for you_. The locusts are hungry and they reduce the prairies to a desert in two days flat.

It only makes sense that they would come to California next.

He hears the buzzing in the wind. The locusts, when they land, cover the state from southern border to most northern point. He wakes up one morning to locust crawling across his face and neck. Their feet move over him light as fingertips brushing his cheeks. The tickling sensation makes his skin crawl, but that feeling too is just from the locust. They're everywhere, on his body and in his bed.

He lets out a very undignified, high pitched scream. The locusts have chewed through the window screen and are swarming into the apartment in a wave of yellow-brown and dots of black. The locusts cling to him and he curls up into a ball, hands over his eyes and ears and mouth. He saw a movie once where bugs got inside a man's skull and were feasting on his brain. The scratch of their bodies against his skull drove him crazy until he scratched his fingers through brain and bone and they crawled out.

"Shut the window, oh god, oh fuck, shut the window!" He pulls his helmet on and feels the crunch of locust against the top of his head. The squish of their hard bodies and dribble of fluid in his hair makes him want to be physically sick.

James, Kendall, and Logan come bursting into the bedroom. Logan has a can of bug spray in each hand; Kendall and James have hockey sticks. The bugs are covering him completely now, so much that he can barely see with his eyes wide open. He's trapped under the locust and he wonders, dry retching in the back of his throat, if they're going to eat him. They could, they could eat him so easily, like those ants in Africa and South America can kill and eat a baby in a matter of seconds before they drag what's left of it home for their queen.

"Hold on!" Someone tackles him and pulls a blanket over him like he's on fire and they're putting him out. Stop, drop, and roll; only this time when he gets pat down it's to kill the locusts rather than extinguish burning flames. When he emerges from his blanket cocoon, Logan has cleared a path to the window and slammed it shut. There are still thousands of insects in the apartment, but Kendall tosses him a hockey stick while he violently grinds the toe of his boot into the floor.

"Kill some pests?" James asks, beaming, his face contorting into horror when a locust lands on his teeth. "I hate these things."

"Me too." He says before he grips his stick tightly in both hands and starts to swing.

It takes a good four hours to clear the apartment. And by clear, he doesn't mean make clean. After they finish, the apartment is covered with the flattened carcasses of locusts. Every inch of the floor is sticky and Carlos has dozens of bodies stuck to him. He can feel the shift of their exoskeletons with every step he takes. There are even bugs in his underwear, which is just totally gross.

"Oh, my." Mrs. Knight's eyes are wide as she inspects the damage. "That is going to be really hard to clean up."

"Yeah," Kendall peels off his gory boots and hands them to her. "Have fun with that, we gotta go."

* * *

The Jennifers are hyperventilating in the lobby and Camille is halfway into a monologue from an apocalypse movie Carlos remembers watching with his papá when he was thirteen.

"Carlos!" Jennifer three sobs and latches onto him. "You'll keep the horrible, disgusting, awful grasshoppers away from us, right?" All three Jennifers are hugging him and it's basically a dream come true. They're warm and smell like expensive perfume and if he wasn't so terrified of the locusts himself he'd totally volunteer to be their bodyguard.

"Uh, yeah. Of course!" His mouth always seems to say stuff without his brain's permission. Logan says it's a genetic defect.

A single locust starts to buzz around the lobby and he's mortified when he and the Jennifers scream at the same time and frequency.

"Oh yes, Carlos is going to protect you three." James laughs and Carlos doesn't appreciate it, not one bit.

"Shut up, I was startled!"

"Holy shit." Jennifer Two screams and it's the first time Carlos has ever heard her swear. "He's covered in bug guts!"

"My designer jeans!"

"This top is brand new!"

They don't want him to protect them anymore. James just laughs and laughs.

* * *

By the time the locust leave California, there isn't a single piece of vegetation to be seen.

Mrs. Knight makes an emergency run to every grocery store in the city, but she still only comes home with five plastic bags of food. The only food that survived was the stuff sealed inside a tin can or glass jar.

"No big deal," Mrs. Knight says even though she's obviously trying not to panic. "We only have to wait until the government starts shipping in food from other countries."

"I don't think that's going to happen." Logan points to the television and there are pictures of swarms of locust on every single continent. "This is a good summer for locust, apparently."

"But a bad one for us."

Mrs. Knight rations their food carefully. She has a feeding schedule up on the fridge, but after just two weeks the pantry and refrigerator are bare.

"I'm sorry," She chokes, looking like she thinks she's the worst mother in the world. "I can't do anything else."

There's no food left anywhere.

* * *

He faints one afternoon when they are practicing a new dance routine. He hasn't eaten anything in four days and his stomach hurts it's so empty. Any food they can find, which so far amounts to half a pack of peanut M&Ms Kendall dug out from under the couch, goes to Katie first.

"Carlos, sweetie, are you okay?" Kelly cups his face with both hands.

"I'm cool, don't worry about it." He's majorly embarrassed. Four little days without food and he's already passing out.

"Have some water." They've been drinking tons of water lately. Mrs. Knight gives them two glasses in place of a meal so that their stomachs are tricked into feeling full.

"Here." Gustavo comes out of his office with four pudding cups in his hands. "This is…it's all I got."

Gustavo's really not too bad at all.

* * *

Carlos doesn't believe the reports about cannibalism until he sees it for himself. There are tons of stories going around, rumors of the government hoarding emergency supplies to sell to other countries at sky high prices and shit about the locusts being genetically engineered in a terrorist lab in the Middle East.

They haven't eaten for five weeks and his skin feels like it's stretched too tightly over his bones. He looks sick, they all do. Katie resembles a deformed human skeleton and none of them are much better. They get occasional meals every now and then. Guitar Dude, despite his easy-going demeanor, used to go hunting with his father before he came out to LA, and every now and then he shows up with a few animals in the back of his van. There aren't many animals around these days, though. Most of them have started to die out. There's plenty of fish, however, and Mrs. Knight has started to resort to catching locust and glazing them with sugar to get them to eat. Four or five meals a week still isn't enough, because there's an entire world to feed and resources are always, always limited.

"Hey guys," He and James follow the mouth-watering scent of cooking meat to Jett's apartment. "You want some?" Jett offers them some burnt strips of meat. Burnt or blackened or hard as a rock, he grabs the food offered to him and digs in. He can't tell what kind of meat it is from the taste, which tells him it's something not sold in the markets. He guesses it's probably dog or cat or possibly raccoon.

"Dude," James talks around a wet chunk of meat in his mouth. "Where did you get this?"

"In times of crisis, you have to be resourceful. It was my character's motto in 'Tastes Like Chicken'."

"Wasn't that a movie about the Donner Party?" He pauses and slowly chews.

"I think the message is more applicable today than ever." Jett grins and the blood smeared around his mouth suddenly doesn't look so appetizing.

"Jett?" James asks and his eyes are wide.

"Go cut me some more meat, would you? I want to make jerky out of this."

Jo is sprawled out on the kitchen counter, her chest torn open. Jett gutted her first, like he was cleaning a carcass. The bloody remains of her organs and intestines are sitting in the sink. He ate her liver first, then her kidneys, but he didn't seem to care for the taste of her lungs or heart. Next he set about stripping the muscle and flesh from her limbs and belly. Her back is completely untouched and Jett has marked it with black Sharpie to indicate the pieces he wants cut.

Carlos leans over and pukes what little he's eaten right onto the blue tile floor. James is stunned for a few seconds and then he throws up too. "Sorry guys," Jett is blocking the only exit. He has a meat cleaver in his hand. "I need to look out for numero uno." Jett advances on them and he thinks back to everything his papá has ever told him about the law and being a police officer.

He went through a knife throwing phase when he was eight and his James' parents took them to the circus for Logan's birthday. His mamá figured it out when she caught him throwing knives at his bedroom wall and trying to convince James to put an apple on his head.

He misses with the first one, but the second goes straight into Jett's eye. He was aiming for his chest, actually, though he isn't going to be picky. He feels sick afterwards, as Jeff writhes on the ground and screams, blood pouring over the blade of the knife and down his cheek.

"I'm sorry, I'm so sorry." He cries, over and over, feeling horrible. Jett is only trying to stay alive too, fucked up as it may be.

"It's okay." James wraps his arms around him, holds him through the sobs and trembling breaths. "You did good, dude. I mean, that was a great shot."

"I was trying to get his shoulder or chest." He whispers, letting out the tiniest laugh.

"Then I'm really glad I never let you put an apple on my head."

* * *

"I have a surprise for you guys." Mrs. Knight tells them, face far away and distant. She's stirring up a big pitcher of purple Kool-Aid and smiling so wide it scares him. "I've been saving this for a special occasion."

"What's so special about today?" Katie doubles over with stomach cramps. They've all been hit with excruciating stomach cramps but Katie's are the worst.

"You'll see." Mrs. Knight grins and kisses Katie's emaciated face. Carlos doesn't see what is so special about today. Cannibalism has become more widespread in certain districts. There are gangs of cannibals now and everyone is afraid to go outside unarmed. Guitar-Dude went out one morning to fish and he never came back. The search party sent out to find him never returned either, but later their heads were gruesomely placed on sticks marking a cannibal gang's new territory a block from the Palmwoods.

"Mom," Kendall is looking at a thick, black substance on kitchen counter. There is a clump of some kind of leaves next to it. "What is that?"

"Tobacco leaves," Logan is the only one who seems to understand what it all means. "When the leaves are soaked in water and the water is left to evaporate it leaves behind a black residue. If ingested, it causes death in less than a minute."

"Mrs. Knight?" James slowly backs up towards the door.

"I can't watch my babies die." She sounds so lost and broken. "Things are going to get bad. I won't, you don't know what kind of things horrible people will do to you." Carlos does, he recalls the stories his grandparents used to tell him about their trip from Mexico to the United States; the rapes and the beatings and the murders. People are crueler than anyone realizes. "I couldn't bear it."

She picks up the bowl and adds the black stuff in with the Kool-Aid before adding heaping spoonfuls of sugar. "Please?"

He can't take the emptiness in his stomach one more day. He's tired of watching everyone wither away. He's tired of watching people debate over whether it's acceptable to eat someone once they die.

He pours himself a glass and raises it high into the air. After a few moments, five more join his.

"Cheers." James sadly clinks their glasses together.

Despite the sugar, the drink still has a slight aftertaste of bitter.

The heat sets in, sudden and stifling. His chest is being crushed, his skin hurts, he's on fire somewhere deep inside, he—

* * *

2.

Politics were never James' thing until conservatives and liberals world-wide got pissed off at each other and started a global war. Every country for itself and the winner is whichever has the most people left standing. China is at the biggest advantage, seeing as its population is giant, but the US launches a few nuclear strikes and after it's been bombed a few dozen times it backs off. There are pictures that remind him of history classes about Hiroshima and Nagasaki; the innocent men and women with blackened skin and blisters down to their bones, radiation sickness that caused their hair and teeth to fall out and their stomachs to spew thick, poisoned blood. That's what they did to the Chinese, but in their defense, China tried to nuke them first, and _everyone_ ganged up on North Korea and Afghanistan. The Middle East is a dead zone and the western world has a temporary alliance while they focus on hostile countries in Africa.

It's horrible and the US is split into a thousand pieces. Anti-war protesters rally together while the pro-war people eagerly sign up to go to out and fight. Their country, made up of hundreds of different kinds of people, has more hate than he ever knew. A few guys tried to pelt Carlos with rocks once, hurling insults he'd never heard. Awful things like jagger and beaner and wetback and spic. America's relations with Mexico have been a bit tense recently, he'll admit it, but Mexico is helping to protect the southern border from South American troops.

James isn't surprised when their draft notices come in. He and Kendall and Logan and Carlos have miraculously managed to avoid their numbers getting called. Their luck has definitely run out.

* * *

The army gives them six weeks of basic training before it ships them off. It can't afford to wait longer than that. Bodies are being brought home in record numbers from all over the world. Guitar Dude's folded American flag is framed in glass in the lobby. James was there when they took him away, long hair in his eyes as he cried for peace and love and denounced the government as capitalistic and fascist pigs.

Somalia is hot as fuck in the summer and they're all in combat uniforms and boots. They're fighting the Somalians and their allies from different parts of Asia. It's a weird mix of people to see together. The US is strung in with a unit from Spain and another from South Korea. Most of them can't speak the same language, so Carlos acts as a translator for the Spanish guys while a half Korean girl from New York City acts as a translator for the rest. They aren't cohesive, which in the end will get them killed. The draft was progressive enough to include girls, though all girls had to be eighteen, while the limit for boys is two years lower.

"I hate it here," Carlos somehow convinced the colonel to let him keep his helmet. He's painted it their colors and stuck an American flag on the back. It's going to get him noticed and shot but no one can get him to take it off. "I want to go home."

"I hate it too," They shaved off all his beautiful, gorgeous hair. His hair is short and prickly each time he runs his hand over his scalp.

"We should have gone to Canada," Logan has taken to the soldier-thing worse than any of them. Logan isn't the type of guy made to handle a gun. His dream was always to help people, not to kill. For the most part he is allowed to stay back and help in the medical tent. He isn't trained and he can't do anything important, but he changes bandages and fetches pills and can wrap tourniquets to stop bleeding.

"And Canada would have sent us into their army and we'd be in fucking Laos right now. I'd rather be in the desert than the jungle." Kendall's adjusted pretty well, considering. He's a natural leader and he's slowly starting to work his way up through the ranks. He won't be a private much longer if he keeps up the good work. He has the tendency to be a bit too mouthy though. Their colonel says he'll beat that independent streak out of Kendall if he has to.

"What's it matter? The Russians are bound to hit us with a missile soon enough." Carlos mops sweat from his face with his sleeve.

"Not a chance." The US has its best soldiers stationed along its borders. Their government sends the new recruits to fight overseas. Protect the homestead is the first and foremost. American soil, that land stained with revolutionary blood and tears, it's sacred, and never to be invaded again.

"You don't know. I can't take being out here. Why doesn't someone kill us and get it over with?"

"Dude, don't say that." He elbows Carlos sharply in the ribs. Three guys and two girls in their platoon blew their brains out over the past six days. The military calls it an isolated incident, but it's happening everywhere. James' gun is his fourth best friend after Logan, Kendall, and Carlos. "We're gonna be fine and the US is gonna win and then everything is going to be fine."

"Fine?" Logan throws his hat down and stomps it into the sand. "There won't be anyone left. The fatalities, you guys, half the _world_ is dead and the numbers keep rising. This is worse than World War I and II combined. This is extermination on a massive scale."

A bomb goes off about a mile down the road. The flames curl orange into the air and the smoke rises in a black plume.

The car hit wasn't a military vehicle. It was a civilian car, a beat up old Toyota from the nineties. It's blown to pieces along with the family of six stuffed inside. There are body parts scattered among the shrapnel and most of a toddler is lying on his back, dark eyes wide open and facing the blazing sun. James feels nothing as he pokes among the wreckage. He's been desensitized. You shoot enough men and women at point blank, you drag enough dead bodies into medical tents, and death is just another part of the week.

"Poor kid," Carlos shrugs before he drops to his knees and fires three times at the figure approaching. Whoever it is goes down, and then there come more and more. It's one of their enemies, whichever fucking one it may be, because the entire world hates everyone else and allies are only temporary until you try to stab them in the back with an AK-47. "Radio for backup!"

They don't have cover, so they have to lie as close as they can to the burning sand. The heat of the ground is absorbed by his uniform until he's sweating all down his front. He's soaked from the collar onward and he can barely see clearly enough through the heat waves to pick a target and shoot. There are bullets whizzing past his face, dangerously close to hitting his model-perfect nose and nicely sculpted cheekbones. He's already lost his hair; he won't let war ruin his face too.

"I'm running out of ammo." He's already fired off four rounds and he only has one left.

"Logan's getting reinforcements." Kendall spits into the sand and his saliva is absorbed instantly. "Just shoot until you can't."

"Great orders, did that thinking hurt your brain?"

"Shut up." Kendall aims and a target drops in a burst of red. Kendall hits the guy square in the neck and nicks his jugular or carotid.

Carlos rolls over, clutching his bloody thigh.

"Oh shit, I think I'm hit."

"No." He runs his hand down Carlos' leg. "It looks like it just grazed you."

Logan returns with their unit and even though they outnumber the enemy, James doesn't feel like they're winning this war. No one is going to win, he realizes as he helps Carlos limp on his injured leg. No one wins a war, not really. The stakes are too high.

* * *

3.

When Carlos was small, his great-grandfather would tell him stories of men made from mud and wood and corn. Kukulkan and Tepeu made people from the earth and when that failed they carved them from wood before finally they learned that it was corn, the gift of nourishment from the gods, that sustained man in body and mind. His great-grandfather's grandfather told him the story and it was passed on that way, back and back and back. It's the story of their people, his great-grandfather said. It explains the blood that surges inside him, the marrow pulsing within his bones.

* * *

"I got you a present," James comes home from the hairdresser (who he calls a stylist, which apparently makes it manlier) with something held behind his back. "A really awesome present."

"Deep fried corndogs from that place by the mall?" His mouth is watering at just the memory. It's pretty gross that he can conjure up that much drool.

"No, but I will remember that for next time. And this is better." Very slowly and carefully, James brings his hands around to his front. Cradled gently in his palms is a tiny, fluffy, baby bunny.

Carlos makes a high pitched, ecstatic sound that cracks free of his throat.

"Oh my god, oh my god," He grabs the bunny from James, mindful not to crush it with his hands. He did that once, by accident. He had been five and his teacher should have known better than to let him hold the kindergarten's parakeet Mikey without supervision. "You got me a bunny."

"I got you a bunny." James smiles and if it weren't for the bunny snuggled up against his chest he'd hug him or kiss his mouth right off his face. "Cause, you know,"

He knows.

"I'm going to name him Alfonso." Alfonso is a great name for a bunny, it suits him. Alfonso has soft, white fur and black ears with two patches of black around his eyes. His nose is tiny and wet. Carlos loves him so much his heart could burst. "I have to go show him to people."

"I'll stay here and set up his cage." James is really the best person ever. He lifts Alfonso up so the bunny can give James' cheek a kiss.

The Jennifers shriek when he first shows Alfonso to them, but when they realize he's holding out a bunny and not a frog or a snake or something that could stain their clothes, they squeal and pet Alfonso's delicate ears and hold him against their breasts.

"Oh he's _precious_."

"His teeny ears, he's so cute."

"Can we come by and play with him sometime?" If he and James weren't sort of _whatever_, he'd have gotten a pet to try and get girls months ago.

"Of course!" He grins and then runs off to go find Kendall and Jo. Kendall shrugs at Alfonso and scratches him once behind the ears because Jo is going on and on about how adorable the bunny is and how much she loves animals.

"Are you sure you can take care of a rabbit, Carlos?" Kendall is mentioning what they've never talked about. Namely; Sparky. He hadn't meant to leave his cage door open but he had and he misses his hamster every single day.

"I can do it. He's not any trouble at all, see how nice he is?" Alfonso licks Kendall on the nose and Carlos about dies from an overload of cute. "I'll clean his cage and let him run around my room and I'll give him baths."

"I don't think you can give bunnies baths." Jo tells him, her eyes wary.

"Well if he's going to go in the pool with me he's going to have to take a bath after."

"Okay, then." Jo takes Alfonso out of his hands. "If you're going to have a pet, I'm going to set down a few rules."

"But—" Alfonso closes his little bunny eyes and falls asleep with his face resting against Jo's bare skin.

"One: bunnies do not go in the pool or any body of water, because I don't know if bunnies can swim and we don't want to find out. Two: bunnies also don't eat people food, so no sharing corndogs or chips or ice cream or Fruit Snackers. Three: bunnies sleep in their own beds, not with you. You don't want to roll over and squish him." Oh no no he doesn't want that. His heart couldn't handle it. "And, finally: bunnies do inot/i get their own helmets, I don't care if you find one that can fit. Do you understand me?"

"Yes." Usually he only pays attention to half of what Jo tells him, but this time he listened to every single word. "I'll take good care of Alfonso and James will help."

"In that case, then there's one more rule."

"What?"

"No styling the bunny's fur."

"Got it."

* * *

Alfonso is sort of Carlos' new best friend. He spends most of his free time with him. He sits on the floor of his and James' room and watches Alfonso hop around and explore. He carries Alfonso with him around the Palmwoods and even bought a fanny pack to put him in when Alfonso is tired and needs a nap. He even takes him to the studio and Kelly takes care of him while Carlos has to sing.

"I'm glad you like your present." James says as they feed Alfonso pieces of carrot and banana in the kitchen.

"I do, I do." He latches onto James' torso while Alfonso chews delicately on his food. "He's the best pet ever. I'm going to try and teach him to do tricks. Oooh, do you think he could learn to dance? Then he could go on tour with us and like, do routines on stage!"

"We could try."

Bunnies can't learn to dance.

* * *

Alfonso changes and the weather takes a turn for the strangely humid. LA is supposed to be dry heat and polluted air. The new weather has the air thick with moisture and it feels thick to the touch, like it's crackling with beads of water and static electricity. It feels like Minnesota in the summer even though it's the beginning of December.

"Your rabbit bit me." Logan holds up his bloodied hand. Something _did_ bite him, almost an inch and a half deep. Any further into his hand and the teeth would have scraped against one of Logan's knuckle bones.

"You are lying," he says and turns his face away. "Alfonso would never bite anyone."

"Well you're wrong, because it bit me. It bit Camille too."

Alfonso is sitting sweetly in his cage, licking his pawns before he rubs them over his face. Carlos would take a picture of it but his camera is already full of pictures of Alfonso wearing a plastic cowboy hat he found in Katie's old collection of Barbie dolls that she never touched.

"He looks the same as always. Why isn't he covered in blood if he did it? Hmm?"

"Obviously he washed his face."

"He's a rabbit; he doesn't even know how to use the sink."

Logan smacks his forehead with his open palm.

"Never mind, just forget it."

* * *

Alfonso bites Carlos when he's taking him out of his cage to go play out in the Palmwoods Park. He sinks his buck teeth into the loose skin between Carlos' thumb and the pain flares sharply up his wrist until it travels down his spine.

"Alfonso!" He cries, shocked and close to tears. His beloved pet ibit/i him. It feels like the most terrible breach of trust.

Alfonso snarls at him, seriously snarls. He didn't know bunnies could make any kind of noise, let alone scary ones. Alfonso sprints across his bedroom floor, from one end of the room to the other, before he darts under the bed. He leans down to try and coax Alfonso out, hoping maybe his pet was just mad at him for something. He has been neglecting Alfonso a little bit, if only because Alfonso pooped in Gustavo's office so now he isn't allowed to bring him to the studio. His hand is burning and blood is dripping down his fingers and falling onto the carpet in perfect drops.

"Hey, we have to—" As soon as James opens the door, Alfonso dashes out into the living room and through the front door.

"No! Wait!" He chases him, follows the sounds of Jennifer Three screaming. Alfonso bit her in the ankle on his way past her and there's a hole in the cuff of Bitters' best suit from Alfonso's teeth. "Alfonso, oh no."

"I'm sorry." James puts a hand on his shoulder and Logan bandages up his bleeding wound. "I should have gotten you a turtle."

"No," He turns and buries his face in James' chest. "A turtle would leave me too."

* * *

It isn't just Alfonso. All the animals start acting strange and violent. Lightning growls at anyone that tries to approach him, even his trainer Bill. A few days after that, he tears apart a four year old girl's face. Carlos is there when it happens. The little girl is bending down to pet him, ignoring his low, warning growls, and he launches himself up and sinks his teeth into her cheek. He bites off her lips and the tip of her tiny nose. There's blood _everywhere_: on Lightning's muzzle and his hands and Kendall's hands and James' wrists and Logan's appalled face as they struggle to pull the two of them apart. Logan presses a towel over the toddler's head instantly and James holds Lightning at an arm's length as he howls and snaps. None of them are surprised when the city puts the dog down. None of them are too upset about it either.

Animals in every country are suddenly dangerous. Some scientists think it's a global outbreak of rabies or distemper or something even worse. He agrees with them until he notices that December 21 is approaching. Jett is convinced it's the end of the world, so he does a string of ridiculously high paying but awful movies and buys a yacht he can't afford because he says he isn't going to live long enough to deal with the bills. He remembers then, the story of creation, of the people made from mud and wood and dough. The animals were made first, his great-grandfather had said as Carlos sat in his bony lap. They were first but they could not praise the gods so they were doomed to serve those who could and would rebel against man if he ever stopped. If man couldn't praise the gods as he was intended to, the gods would flood the earth to wash their mistake away.

He's not entirely sure he believes it, though. It was always just a fairy tale to him like the book about a little red hen or a person made from a cookie. It wasn't real, not like people thought the Bible was. It wasn't that kind of religion anymore, it wasn't _valid_ and there was no Kukulkan or Chaac or Tepeu watching angrily from the sky. There is no Metnal and Cizin and Cum Hau aren't waiting to reclaim his soul once he dies. His great-grandfather believed that stuff but he never did.

"2012 isn't actually the end of the world, is it Logan?"

"No," Logan laughs like it's hilarious of him to even ask, like everything his family comes from is a giant joke. "That's ridiculous. The Mayans can't predict the end of the world."

"You don't know for sure."

"Yes, I do. There isn't any logic behind the date. Whatever is happening with the animals is a fluke."

"Or Kukulkan is angry," he whispers softly, entirely to himself. He was Kukulkan for Halloween when he was three. His mamá made him brightly colored robe and sewed him a crown of fake snakes and feathers. She still has the picture of him on the fridge.

"What'd you say?"

"Nothing, it's stupid." It has to be. It couldn't sound like a dumber idea if he'd come up with it himself.

* * *

"You seem distracted lately," he and James are watching a movie and instead of paying attention to the TV or snuggling closer to James he's counting down the minutes on the clock. Three hours and twenty-four seconds and he'll be proven right or wrong.

"I'm not." He lies and kisses James with all he's got. "I was thinking about Alfonso."

"I'll buy you another rabbit; we can pick it out together." He shoves James hard until James is on his back and staring up at him, an eyebrow raised in a suggestive smile. "We'll go to the pet store tomorrow."

He kisses James quiet. He kisses them both quiet. He kisses until he forgets to look at the clock.

* * *

The flood comes while James is asleep. He's awake and standing by the window, waiting to see if it's actually going to happen. He listens to the roar of the sea as it approaches, in awe of the shadow of the giant wave tall enough to block the light of the moon. Tsunamis don't usually happen in California but at the end of the world anything is possible.

The wave hits the Palmwoods and shatters the window glass. Water rushes in and he looks for Chaac or Chaac Uayab Xoc or Cizin, gods of rain and the drowned and death. He doesn't see them. He only sees the warped swirl of water as he runs out of breath.

* * *

4.

James is holding Carlos' hand and the midnight sky is bright with shooting stars and fire. He's never seen a night so bright, it's like day has come again and sun split itself into a million tiny pieces. Carlos' face is full of wonder, his mouth open, but his hand is squeezing James' so tight he can feel the bones in his fingers grinding together.

"There's no chance this will just give me superpowers, is there?" Carlos asks Logan, who is sitting by the pool with Camille in his lap. She's crying and Logan touches their foreheads together.

"Who knows," James can barely hear Logan over the sound of sirens and screams.

On the opposite end of the pool, the Jennifers are sitting together with their feet in the water. Their arms are linked and they're kissing, which, on any other day, would have caused his testicles to just about explode with joy. The three girls have their mouths all pressed together at once and he never would have known _that_ about them. He'd have hoped but never guessed.

"Remember how I wanted to be a dinosaur when I was five?" He remembers Carlos' dinosaur phase well. His parents had sent him to therapy for six weeks after Carlos refused to eat anything but meat or use words instead of high pitched calls and roars. Carlos ran around like a Velociratpor, arms held up close to his chest, his fingers curled like claws. He bit their teacher Mr. Miles in the leg during recess and he wasn't allowed back into school for almost eight days.

"That was a very strange time."

"I thought it was great," Carlos laughs and his eyes don't reflect the joy in his voice. "It's a little cool that we get to die like them. In a really fucked up way."

"Super fucked up." He agrees, stretching out to watch the hundreds of mini-meteors fall. For all the crazy amounts of impending doom that are waiting just beyond the full harvest moon, the end of the world is ridiculously beautiful. He always heard people talk about how pretty nature could be, but it never resonated with him until now. He thought that it was people, flesh and bone and perfect hair, that made things beautiful. But this, the streaks of white and gold that flash bright as emergency flares, they're gorgeously tragic. "Should we make a wish?"

"I don't think it'll come true. Can wishes come true if you're dead?"

"I think so? But, hey, it's not like you'd know, so you could totally get ripped off by the universe. If you wished for a cake, you might still get one, but it could be sugar-free or something."

Carlos sticks out his tongue.

"Or carrot-cake."

"God, don't get me started on carrot-cake. That was the worst birthday party in the history of birthday parties. I'm including Robbie's in there too, and you puked everywhere in the bounce house." Carlos flushes from the tip of his chin to his forehead, it's adorable to see.

"I'd had too much Fruit Punch, okay?"

"Dude, I was there, I _saw_." He did and it was disgusting and he still can't drink Fruit Punch to this day.

"Can we change the topic? I don't want to die thinking about puked up Fruit Punch."

"Good idea." He isn't sure what to bring up. There isn't a list of things to discuss during the end of the world. He'd rather do what the Jennifers and Logan and Camille are doing. "Come here." He tugs Carlos into a pool chair and flops down beside him.

"James?" Carlos shakily says as James slides a hand beneath his purple t-shirt.

"We're dying, might as well get to second base."

"You're sort of skeevy, you know that? Taking advantage of me like that. Way uncool and rapey."

He has his mouth against the pulse point of Carlos' throat. Carlos' heart is beating rapid as a hummingbird's wings and his fingers tangle in James' hair. Ordinarily he'd get upset with Carlos for that, but there are a few exceptions he can make for the end of the world and all. There's no point in trying to look good in death if no one is going to be around to see your body. It's a messed up philosophy, but James' grandmother died in her best pearls and makeup, and James doesn't have anyone he's going to need to impress with his corpse.

"You want me to stop?"

Carlos, who at this point is sighing softly, tilts his head and frowns.

"Stop and you _die_."

"Technically, that is going to happen anyways." He's usually not the guy to kill the mood, except he does, and Carlos tucks his chin against his chest to deny James' mouth access to his neck.

"For someone who goes out with a bunch of girls, you're shitty at romance."

The sky flashes and the meteor is there, whole and visible, a giant, flaming rock. No one screams and he feels like the dinosaurs must have the night of their death, transfixed by the intensity of the beauty.

* * *

5.

Carlos is twenty-seven when the ozone breaks. Scientists had been warning about it since before he was born, preaching on and on about the danger of carbon emissions and global warming. He never thought too much of it at the time. When he was seventeen he was never big on the news or science or current events. He had more important things on his mind like dance routines and girls and the new lyrics for a song.

"Goddamn, it's really hot today," James comes inside from tanning out on the balcony. He's dripping with sweat and even though he's only been outside for ten minutes, his skin is angry-looking and red. "I use an entire bottle of sunscreen and I still burned."

"Yeah, I left my laptop in the car for an hour last week and it melted." He points to the goopy, misshapen mess that used to be his computer. "TV says it's global warming."

"The TV has been saying it's global warming since Al Gore invented the internet." James goes into the bathroom to grab a bottle of aloe vera. After Big Time Rush broke up, because the boy band thing couldn't last forever, and five years seemed like enough, James got into modeling and so now his skin is part of his livelihood. "Fuck I have a shoot in two days and I can't show up looking like a lobster."

"Call Logan?" Somehow Logan managed classes at UCLA while being a popstar and he's a year into his residency at a hospital downtown.

"I can't, he and Camille are taking the baby to that 'mommy and daddy and me' thing they do every week." Carlos can't believe one of them actually has a baby. Logan and Camille got married when Logan finished his third year of medical school and fifteen months later they had a little girl. Logan carries pictures of Kally (named after the character Camille portrayed when she was nominated for an Oscar) around with him everywhere and there are at least half a dozen photos of her around his and James' house. "Gross, I think I'm starting to blister, I'm going to go soak my skin in cold water."

* * *

Everyone comes over to celebrate Kendall and Jo's engagement. The sun is only getting worse and Logan and Camille cover Kally with a blanket from head to toe and run inside with her, careful to never let a speck of light touch her bare skin. Direct contact with sunlight is incredibly painful and all of them are splotchy and blistered and red. They've been hearing that once summer ends the sun will get less intense and things should return to normal.

"I can't believe you finally popped the question, Kendall, it's only taken you like eleven years." James nudges Kendall playfully while Jo shows Camille her diamond ring. It's relatively simple considering how loaded Kendall is from their Big Time Rush days. The ring doesn't look like it's more than three carats and the diamond is set in plain, unremarkable gold.

"Oh no," Jo puts her hand on Kendall's knee. "I'm the one who asked. He was trying to and couldn't get out the words so I did it for him. I got down on my knee right in the middle of the restaurant." Carlos can picture that, Jo staring up at Kendall through her long lashes, a smile turning up the corners of her pink mouth. "The waiter was surprised to say the least."

"You're lucky I said yes," Kendall laughs, placing his hand over Jo's. "You didn't even buy me a ring!"

"Are you and Carlos going to get married anytime soon?" Camille asks James as Kally babbles happily in her lap, chewing on one of her small fists.

"You know we're not," James says lamely, shrugging. "We aren't—" James doesn't quite know how to finish the sentence, Carlos gets it. James has a career to think about. He's cut a few solo albums and is always on the cover of male fashion magazines and there's talk about having him star in some new action film where he fights robot monkeys from space. Carlos' career is different, he pretty much is expected to be gay, considering the whole guy in the fashion industry thing. The Jennifers asked him to be part of their J3C fashion company which is _the_ hottest thing at this point. The brand is worth up to almost a billion dollars and rivals Gucci or Chanel. He doesn't know how they talked him into it or how he got them to agree to a sports equipment division, complete with monogrammed helmets and hockey sticks. Tit for tat, or something like it. He's mostly there to help pick out what average guys would like, the ones who don't care about silk shirts or designer jeans.

"Nah," he dismisses the idea with a flick of his wrist. It's a mannerism he's adopted from the Jennifers. He needs to stop hanging out with girls as much as he does. "We haven't dated in years; two guys can live together without being gay. Don't you pay attention to magazines anymore? James has a new girl every week and I'm dating Jennifer Three." They both are, weird as it may be. Jennifer has him go to premiers and fashion shows with her and they got drunk on really expensive wine together and wound up in her silk and satin bed. He doesn't like to think about that and James made a rule to never bring what they do with women up.

"Oh don't give us that on-the-down-low crap," Camille says as she covers the baby's ears with her palms. "You don't have to worry about being gay these days."

"You know what," James stands up and takes Kally from Camille's lap. "Let's not talk about this, Kally is coming with me and we're going to go get the alcohol."

* * *

Carlos' skin is agony just to touch. He has a layer of blisters on him almost an inch thick. He looks disgusting, like those pictures of people covered in smallpox and boils in the Middle Ages. He doesn't look as bad as James, though. He supposes it's because James is paler and by default has the more sensitive skin.

"Look at us," James prods at his face in the bathroom mirror. "We look like the Thing."

"Everyone looks like the Thing, so you're still handsome compared to the rest of us." Usually the compliment would cheer James up, but this morning it doesn't.

"You were scratching in your sleep again, Carlos."

"I know." He has deep gashes on his arms from digging his nails in and ripping through his cracked and hardened skin. The sheets in their bedroom are spotted with his blood. "I'm going to start sleeping in oven mitts." He winds bandages around his forearms and sticks them there with medical tape. "About last night,"

James puts two fingers on his blistered lips and another two on his chest.

"I'll make an honest girl out of you someday."

"I better get a damn good ring."

"I will buy you a diamond studded helmet."

* * *

A clump of James' hair falls out three weeks after the awful sun was supposed to go away. It's only gotten hotter and hotter until even the moonlight seems to burn. Carlos lost his hair almost five days before, but James' hair has always been a bigger deal. Carlos has never loved anything about himself the way James loved his hair.

"We're all going bald," he says and pretends that telling James that might help.

James combs his hair and slowly it starts to collect in the sink. By the time he finishes, his head is smooth and beautiful compared to the rest of him, to the burnt and withered skin of his face and body. James shoves on a beanie and zips up his jacket as far as it will go.

"I'm going to work, I'll see you later."

* * *

People start getting sick and Carlos can't say he's surprised. Logan is calling it radiation sickness, which is treatable but the treatment is ineffective if people continue to be exposed to the source. They all start staying inside as much as possible and time is switched around. Day becomes night and night is when everyone feels comfortable enough to leave the house.

He goes with James to an award ceremony. James is up for some kind of model of the year thing. It's one of those new categories that the awards show put in just to attract more of an audience by parading pretty people around on stage. James wins (not that it's a surprise) and instead of going up to make a speech he takes a microphone from one of the reporters covering the ceremony live.

"Wow," James says and his smile is genuine for the first time in awhile. Carlos wants to find his smile beautiful and he wants to smile back at him, but James' teeth are turning yellow and Carlos' are falling out more and more each day. He's lost all his molars and one of his front teeth and hasn't had a dentist fit him for replacements yet. "I'm really honored, especially considering my unfortunate state," no one laughs, mostly because they all look pretty much the same and it's something that no one is supposed to talk about. The bad skin and the sickness and the rotting from the inside out, it's better ignored. "I think this is a really great way to end my modeling career," there are a few gasps from the audience, but the news is hardly a surprise. The entertainment industry is in decline. Not many people like turning on the TV to see the horrible mess that used to be a pretty face. "And, while I'm making long-winded speech, there's something else I'd like to get off my chest," James winks at him, perversely handsome in his J3G custom-made tuxedo. James takes Carlos' hand and pulls him to his feet. He wishes James had given him a warning, because his cheeks must be so red it looks like he's been painted with the darkest blush in the entire world. "As I'm sure many of you have suspected; I'm in love with this guy right here."

James holds his face between his two hands and kisses him right there on national television. Most people clap and a few just watch, with sad or disgusted or happy looks on their faces. He doesn't care, they're all going to be dead soon enough. Radiation sickness is always fatal after a long enough period of time.

* * *

Carlos' arm muscles tremble as he clutches the toilet bowl and vomits up blood. His teeth are long gone and his gums are a nasty sight. James isn't doing much better, though he's puked up significantly less blood than Carlos has in the last twenty-four hours. He's in the home stretch now, according to Logan, who despite urgent pages from the hospital refuses to go outside as long as the sun is up. Logan and Camille have someone important to think about, little Kally who hasn't gone outside since the ozone cracked and crumbled like a windshield hit by a brick. Her skin is perfect and soft and baby-smooth. She's turning one in two months and he wishes he could be there to see it, he wishes all of them could. Kendall died of aggressive and advanced melanoma only a few hours before Jo choked to death in her sleep on her own dislodged teeth.

"Do you want some water?" James can barely walk to the kitchen to get it and Carlos hasn't been able to move in hours.

"No," he rests his forehead against the cool tile floor. "I don't think I could keep it down."

"I'm glad to hear it; I don't think I could get it for you anyways." James scoots over and lifts Carlos' head into his lap. "I'm sorry we never got married or had kids."

"I'm not," kids would only have made this harder and he isn't Beyonce, James doesn't need to put a ring on it to prove that he loves him. Love is deeper than that, it's more than words or a ring or a big party with cake and clothes and vows exchanged on the beach.

Love is like the heart that pumps inside him; there forever until the day ceases to beat.


	4. Five Times Carlos Might Have Been Insane

**I can't sleep. This is what came out. I accept no responsibility for what I write at 5 am.**

**Disturbing imagery, blood, gore, fragmented narrative style, unreliable narrator. Abuse of dark imagery.**

**Five Times Carlos Might Have Been Insane**

* * *

1.

The sun peeks bright over the bleached and burnt-out hills.

"You can sing to me, if you want to," the little girl says, pink blooming in her pale cheeks.

Carlos can't find the words, his chest is too thick with feelings, and there is ice forming in his veins.

"You're not real," he tells her and her laugh is louder than the wind. The sound carries through the stillness, takes up all available space, expands like cotton placed in water, a body left to rot, engorged with decomposition fluids until the skin breaks and splits.

"That's a mean thing to say."

He supposes that it is.

"I'm sorry," he doesn't sound honest, not for a second. He can't even hear his own words. There is a rush and thump somewhere, way way off, and it resembles the beating of a dying heart, one last spasm of muscle after another (trickle, squeeze, rest). "Don't go."

"We eat the smile," she speaks with Logan's voice, reciting those lines from an old poem.

"And spit out the teeth."

She walks over the edge, up into the sky.

The sun stretches its wings and burns everything in sight.

2.

"Carlos," James' eyes are two tiny moons, glowing impossibly bright.

(The bathroom mirror is splashed with blood)

"I'm almost done." Razor wet in his hand, slippery to the touch, harder to grip. (He can go deeper if he tries, it only takes some pressure)

He pushes through.

James shoves him to the floor.

"Oh no, oh no," James gasps, his palms cupping Carlos' cheeks. "What did you _do_?"

"They said they didn't believe me, but it's there, you see them."

His neck is wet. (Blood doesn't feel thicker than water, people always lie)

"I don't understand." James' hands are wet now too.

"I told them no one could take my bones."

His skin is lying in the sink, flesh and nerves and muscles, the parts of a human. People are puzzles; people are presents with layers of paper to peel away.

James' fingers rest against the bones of his jaw.

3.

"I wanna be famous," he whispers, again and again and again, autotuned and stuck on replay.

"Of course you do, baby," Kelly strokes his hair while Nurse Knight pulls on a pair of latex gloves.

"I am famous." He announces two weeks later from atop an orange, plastic chair.

No one bats an eye.

Kendall drools, Logan rocks in his seat, and James' arms don't stop shaking. The walls are trembling, great, and white.

"Of course you are," Kelly reaches her hands up to help him off. He hops down, rubber shoes squeaking on linoleum floor.

"I'm going to be just like Kendall, James, and Logan."

One of the orderlies manages to pin him down, arms pressed across his back, the weight of bulky bodies and solid chests. He's a superstar. Soon, no one is ever going to treat him like this again.

"Then you have to start taking your medicine first." Dr. Griffin laughs as a needle slides into his neck to spread liquid fire and ice and poison and crazy into his heart and soul. He twitches, metal jerks out and away.

4.

"Do you believe me?"

He's never had a reason not to.

Only, the ocean seems so far.

"Abuelita always said that we could fly."

She said that he was born on a lucky day and the strength of his heart could carry him past the clouds. Like the angels fell from heaven with decrepit, molting wings, he could ascend with nothing, with the muscle of conviction.

"It can't hurt to give it a shot." He's right. There's no harm in testing opportunity. A bird never dies from its first fall.

His own hands give him that gentle push.

He could always trust in himself.

5.

His ears fall off and flop like dying fish on the floor. He picks them up and stores them in a shoebox beneath his bed. His expensive headphones hide the gaping, bloody holes.

"First the helmet, now you always wear headphones?" Carlos can't hear, so he's learned to read Gustavo's lips or translate the vibrations from Gustavo's screams that rattle his bones. "I don't know what to do with you sometimes, Carlos."

"Sorry," he says and wonders if he's talking too loud. "I can't help it."

"Whatever."

They go back to singing.


End file.
